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The radar equation in meteorology
Author(s) -
ProbertJones J. R.
Publication year - 1962
Publication title -
quarterly journal of the royal meteorological society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.744
H-Index - 143
eISSN - 1477-870X
pISSN - 0035-9009
DOI - 10.1002/qj.49708837810
Subject(s) - radar , meteorology , environmental science , physics , computer science , telecommunications
While meteorologists can obtain much useful information by using radar in a qualitative manner, great benefit can be derived by obtaining quantitative measurements. However, these measurements have been found, in general, to be below values calculated from radar theory by a factor of between two and five, and there has been no satisfactory explanation for this discrepancy. In this paper, the radar equation for a meteorological target is derived, particular attention being devoted to the effect of the shape of the main lobe of the beam, and of the radiation outside it. It is shown that previous theoretical expressions for both the gain and the echoing volume have been too large, and hence that previous equations overestimated the received power. The present equation gives good agreement with all the experimental data.